Derek gives me solace. I feel so much better when he is around. I can't admit that to him. If I did, I would look weak and helpless. That would make me vulnerable. I don't need anyone. I don't need anyone at all. I can do everything I need on my own. I was trained to be alone, and I can handle it. No one should ever need anyone. I think that the key to a good relationship is being independent. If you can do things on your own, surely you will be even better with some support. Nonetheless, I do not want support. Not at all. Alone suits me.

"He had been following me around forever. It had gotten so bad, everyone would ask where he was if he wasn't there. He was my puppy, they said. Everyone thought it was cute. My grandparents found it adorable that someone was so in love. I thought it was creepy. My friends thought it was creepy. He was older than me, Derek. Not by a lot when you get older, but when you are a kid and not looking for that, it scares you." I explain as I attempt to calm myself down. I need to relax or I will be sick.

"That is understandable, Mer. That is something that you can't help but feel." Derek tells me as he strokes my arm. My head is telling me to run away from him and forget all of this. I want to escape the pain that is creeping up on me. My head says run, my heart says stay, Derek will take care of me.

"Like I said, he was always there. And me, I was always hiding. It just felt wrong. I felt like a woman, and I didn't like it. He wanted me. He wanted all of me. He wanted love and sex. I couldn't do it, Derek- Not after- I could not do it. It was too much. At some point someone asked me when he was going to mount me. It made me sick. It made my stomach turn. Maybe I should have tossed myself aside. I guess it would have saved him." I say with a sigh. I have always been confused as to what I was supposed to say and do.

"So what exactly happened?" Derek asked. I guess he wants e to get onto the story. Can't he see, I am avoiding. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about any of it. I draw in a breath as I think back.

iIt's a warm day. I'm actually not a fan of the heat. If it were up to me, I'd rather be just a touch cold. And I don't like the sun. We need it to live, and get it can inadvertently kill us. It makes me literally sick when I am in it too long. Having horses, this isn't a good mixture. When I was little, I would beg the instructor to let us ride in the indoor arena, even on a beautiful day. I have been able to tolerate it more and more, but it will still occasionally give me splitting headaches.

He is here. He is always here. The minute I see his car drive in, I feel tense. My friends say he is a nerd, and he is. He is nice, and caring, but he is a huge nerd. He's not very smart, either. I mean, why does he have to chase after me? Why can't he just go away? Just one of my friends has said I should hang out with him. He has a car, and a job. He could be great for me. I could at least have fun. She said who cares what everyone else says or thinks? She doesn't know. She has no idea. I can't do it. I can't get close. I get close and I get hurt. I hate them. I hate them all.

"Hey, Mer." Johnny says as he walks into the barn aisle. Today, I decided not to hide. Everyone has left me. They always do. Let's leave Mer out on a limb, it will be funny to watch her dangle.

"Oh... Johnny... Hey." I say slowly. Can't believe he doesn't see it. How can he not see how I am feeling. Why is he hanging out when all I do is ignore him and run away. Instead of walking away, he stands here and looks even more like a fool. "What's going on?" More like, why are you here, you dumbass?

"Not much. I just thought I'd stop by and see what you are doing. Are you going to ride? It's a nice day, you should ride." He suggests innocently. You would like that, wouldn't you? Just stop by? You never leave. You were already by my house this morning. Just stopping by. Yeah, right.

"No. I am not riding today." I say curtly. Maybe he will listen to my tone and run from the crazy bitch. I'm getting mad. He has got to leave me alone. He can go straight to hell for all I care. He just needs to leave.

"Oh... It's such a nice day. I thought you would ride. You should think about it." He says simply as he sips his soda. I fight the urge to smash his glasses into his face. Shards of lenses in his eyes. How mean is that? I am there. I am on that level.

"Maybe I would ride if I wanted to. Did you ever thing about that? Do you think I'm that fucking stupid? I don't know that the sun is shining? I'm not a fucking idiot!" I say loudly. I am getting angry. He needs to leave me alone. Now!

"Oh..." Johnny says softly, I think I ht a nerve with him. I can't stop now. I am on a roll.

"And why are you here, anyway? Don't you have a life? You walk around chasing kids, you pedophile? What is wrong with you? You need to get a life." I tell him as I glare into his eyes. He is standing there. What is wrong with him?

"I can't, Mer... I love you." Johnny says quickly. I look at him in shock. Did he really say it? Did he say he loved me.

"What?" I ask in shock. I can't believe it.

"I love you. You are the love of my life." He says with a sigh. I feel a stone in my belly. Oh god.

These words hit me like a ton of bricks. I always thought it was infatuation. Never love. I never considered the fact that he may actually feel something more than an insignificant crush. Those words, the love of his life... I don't know how he can even say them. How can he love me? How can he possibly love me when he doesn't even know me? He follows me around, but he does not know me. Not at all. You cannot just throw love out there. You have to feel it.

"How? How can I be the love of your life? You don't even fucking know me, you loser!" I shout. I am being harsh. I know I am. At the same time, I can't believe him. I want to be mean. I want him to run away with his tail between his legs. He doesn't need to love me. I don't want anyone to love me.

"I look at you, Mer... I love you. There is not a question in my mind. We are supposed to be together. I love everything about you. You have an amazing smile. You are a great person. You are so pretty. I look at you, and I know you are the love of my life." Johnny tells me with a smile. I look at him and frown. He cannot be doing this to me. I must have to put it in terms he understands.

"No. I don't love you. You make me sick. You are a creepy stalker who needs to get a life. You make me so sick, I could puke on myself. Why don't you go after someone your own age? You are such a loser! A pedophile. You need to get a life, Johnny. I don't like you! Do you think I would ever stood that low? I have standards and you are so below them, I can't even acknowledge you. In fact, you shouldn't be here! Get the hell out of here. I don't want to see you ever again." I tell him loudly.

Looking at his face, I don't think I have ever hurt someone so badly in my life. I am fairly certain I just crushed him. I sucked the life right out of him. His eyes went from light and hopeful to something entirely different. It was like all the light that once consumed him, burned down to the socket, leaving darkness and despair.

I watch as he walks away. He doesn't say a word as he climbs in his car. Maybe I should have been nicer. The truth is, he dumb. I had to get my point across and get it stuck in his head. I am not interested in him and he needs to move on as far and as fast as he can. As I watch his car pull away, I feel guilt dragging me down like a fifty pound weight. I have a bad feeling I was far too cruel.

"Wow, Mer! You finally stood up to him." I hear one of my barn friends say. I look up at her and nod my head. The funny thing is, She is right. I did stand up to him, and yet, I have never felt so bad in my life. It is sinking in quickly that I am a bad person. A really bad person.

"Mer, this is not your fault. Whatever happened, is not your fault. You were a little harsh, but you were young. I cannot imagine having this kind of thing happen. You said the first things that came to your mind. If what you said upset him so badly, maybe he is the one that had problems. I mean, he obviously had problems, but maybe he had some serious emotional issues." Derek tells me as he looks over.

This is what people do. They are doing it to support me, but it doesn't make me feel a ton better. In saying this, they are knocking Johnny down. They are making him sound like a terrible person. Through the years of thinking, I have decided that he wasn't a bad person. He was a confused person. Every time I think back to the day when I was so rude to him, I think about his face. There was a look in his eyes. He was genuine. He completely believed what he was saying. He may have had true love for me. That is what hurts. So when people cut him down, it upsets me. He was the victim, not me. Maybe I enjoy my indulgence in the pain that surrounds me.

"No. He was- He wasn't insane, Derek. He was fine. He was just in love. Who am I to judge? I don't know what he was feeling. He may have loved me, I just didn't love him." I explain. I already know what he is thinking. He is thinking the same thing everyone else does. He is thinking that I have formed my own delusion in order to except it. My friends tell me that I have put Johnny on a pedestal and perhaps I enjoy my pain. I don't know anything anymore.

"So what happened to him?" Derek finally asks. I'm sure that like others, he is getting irritated by my lack of acceptance. "What was so bad?" Derek asked with a frown.

"He killed himself.." I blurt out. As if that wasn't obvious. It was painfully obvious considering I already told I made someone kill them self. "It was horrible."

iI feel bad. Everyone thinks it was a joke, but I feel bad. I feel like I was way too harsh to him. I should have just calmly explained that I didn't have the same feelings that he did. That was not what I did. Instead, I attacked him. I have a real problem with attacking when I am uncomfortable. I will hurt you before you hurt me. I need to stop, I've already hurt someone's feelings. I know I did by the look in his eyes.

My friend's mom drives me home. I'm not sure that she knows what has happened. She was always right alongside the others in the teasing. She wasn't being mean abut it, just teasing me about my secret lover. My secret admirer. Everyone thinks it's so cute, and yet they give me a hard time. I just want to go home. I am ready to go lay in my bed and forgot this day. Maybe Johnny will come back and I can apologize to him.

As she drops me in the driveway, I mutter a quiet goodbye and thank you. I can't even tell you what her response was as I walk up my driveway in my riding boots and breeches. I feel like my legs are made of stone. I don't even want to walk. I would be quite content to lay down in the bushes and die. Somehow, that would be far too easy. I guess I am doomed to suffer.

As I walk in the door, I feel a chill. I can't even tell you what the chill is. It is just an uneasy feeling all over my body. I drop my bag and sit down on the bench by our door. My mom has a thing about manure and if I don't rip my boots off and leave them, she will have a fit. Getting your field boots off is next to impossible by yourself, but somehow I manage to do it using the boot pulls. Just as I place the second boot to the side, I see my mom's shadow.

"Hey." I say softly as I look up at her. By the look on her face, this is bad. Something is wrong. "What?" I ask quickly. Looking at her, I see a mixture of many things. Grief and hate being at the top of the list.

"They hate me. They hate us..." She mutters as she looks at me. Honestly, I think she is looking right through me. It is as if she is boring holes into me. Holes of hate and anger. "I don't know how I am supposed to go to work tomorrow." She says quickly.

"What is going on, mom? Is everything okay?" I ask as I sit there, looking up. I have that sinking feeling in my gut, but I'm feeling okay. "Mom?"

"The Miller's... They hate me. He is my chief and he hates me. I have no idea how I am supposed to go on at the hospital." She tells me with a frown. I can only wonder what she has done to ruin her career.

"What did you do?" I ask quickly. My mother is always pushing things to the limit and I am sure she made some mistake that she will be held accountable for.

"Not me! You! You, Meredith. He is dead. Their only son in dead and you did it." I hear her yell at me. I feel sick. The Millers. Our neighbors down the road. Johnny. "He killed himself."

"What?" I ask in shock as I look into her eyes. Surely there has been a mistake. There is no way that Johnny can be dead. No way. I just saw him. I saw him before I came home. It had been a few hours. Just a few hours. "What do you mean, dead?" I ask in a panic.

"He hung himself off of their balcony." She tells me. I can see in her eyes that she is angry with me. "He was so upset. I don't know what you did to him, but he did it. He killed himself. I hope you are happy. I will never be able to work in this town again. You are just like your father. You are so selfish!" She yells at me.

I quickly jump up and run up the stairs. I feel so sick. Johnny is dead and it is my fault. I yelled at him. I told him what a horrible person he was. He hung himself because of me. As I lay on my bed, I feel my heart pumping so quickly. Life is unfair. How could he do this to himself? How could he take it all away? I feel the tears pour out onto my pillow. My stomach is sick. I fee like I could vomit. I will never forgive myself. Never.

iThere is no worse feeling in the world than laying in the bed in pain. I'm usually not the one to lay in the bed and cry. Generally I try to hold onto a regular life and pretend I'm okay. Not right now. Right now I feel horrible. Right now I just want to lay here and feel bad for myself. It is like a never ending pain. It is like something you can't escape, no matter how you try to evade.

As I let my tears fall, all I can see is his face. I will never forget the disappointment that filled him. It was like he had heard the worse news of his life. His eyes had been full of complete devastation. Now his eyes were nothing. Now his eyes were hollow and dead. Now his his skin was cold and gray. Now Johnny was laying on a cold slab in a morgue somewhere. I can't take this grief. I can't stop thinking about how I pushed someone over the edge.

I wonder if Johnny wanted a family. I'm sure he did. I'm sure he had dreams and aspirations. I know he wanted to go in the army. Both of his doctor parents wanted him to go to college and medical school. That is the thing about our parents, they steer us. They want us to go a certain way and we are expected to. He didn't want to do that. He said he was going to be a marine. Now he was nothing. Everything is over for him. I wonder if in his final gasping breath, if he regretted anything. I wonder if he fought the rope, deciding he really didn't want to die. Or perhaps, he hung there, taking death happily, immersing himself in his pain. These are things I wonder. This what has me crying. This is what debilitates me.

Somehow I decide to pull myself out of bed. My stomach hurts. I feel as if I swallowed poison. Maybe I should swallow poison. I deserve it. I hurt so bad. It's not just Johnny. It's him. It's Jack. But he doesn't matter. But maybe he does. Maybe if it weren't for Jack, I would have been ready. Perhaps if not for Jack, I could have given Johnny what he wanted. I wasn't ready. I don't think I will ever be ready. I am afraid to love. I don't want to love. And if I couldn't have feelings for someone who was willing to do anything to have me, how will I ever have feelings for anyone?

I creep down the stairs. I am sure my mom is at the hospital. She never even came to check on me. Quite honestly, I am not surprised. She just doesn't care. I guess she doesn't love me. Truthfully, I know that isn't true. She loves me in her own way. She loves me in the way that only Ellis Grey can. It is diluted. It has a bitter taste.

My body aches as take each step. I think most of the pain is mental. I should hurt the way he hurt. I should suffer the way I made him suffer. I need a drink. My body is parched from all of the tears. My head is pounding from the crying and the dehydration. As I walk through the dark kitchen, I feel a chill come over me. I keep expecting him to be at the door, wanting to talk. He won't do that. He can't do that. He's dead.

He's dead, so now that means that he can show up anytime. I don't believe in ghosts and all that nonsense. Yet, right now, I feel as if I may pee my pants. He would be well within his supernatural rights to come up from behind and hurt me. At the least, he should scare me. I pour myself water with my shaky hand. I'm lucky it is going in the glass at all.

"Okay... If you are here, I'm sorry Johnny. I'm so sorry!" I cry out. "And now I have reached the ranks of insane, seeing as I am talking to the dead. Way to go, Mer."

I turn around and lean against the countertop so as to be able to see all around. I want to see his dark ghostly ass coming at me. Of course I see nothing. I'm sure he is so mad at me, he wouldn't even waste his time on me. As I look around in the dark, seeing all kinds of shadows that could be pissed off dead men, I see a piece of paper. I raise my brow as I reach for it. In the dark, I cannot read it's writing. I flip in the light over the stove and gasp. I see his handwriting. It's a copy, but it is his.

"I just can't do it anymore. It's become clear to me that I will never fit in this world. I am the puzzle piece that was mis-cut. I'm tired of people trying to shove me where I don't fit. The only fit I had was with Meredith and she didn't want me. If she can't love me, no one ever will. I have no reason to go on through this daily suffering. Don't blame yourselves, this was all me."

-Johnny

I drop the paper. It is creepy and eerie. It really was my fault. He said it. If I couldn't love him. Maybe I should have lied to him and myself. I could have lived a lifetime of lies. I should have lived a lie. At least if I did, a mother and father wouldn't be missing their son. This is all on me. He spelled it out. It was Meredith, all Meredith. How do you go on after this? You just don't./i

"Meredith, you did not do this. Don't you see?" Derek asks me frankly. I look at him. What the hell is he talking about? I just told him what the letter said. Suicide note. It said I did it. Hello.

"No." I growl as I look him in the eyes. The tears have stopped and now I am getting mad. "I just told you what it said."

"Yes, you did. You said he was a puzzle piece that was mis-cut. Don't you listen? Him. He was. This wasn't you. He had been feeling bad his whole life. This is probably how it had been for him. He probably grew up feeling the pressure of his parents and questioning whether or not he was inferior. This wasn't you. You were just the means for an out. You were a scapegoat. You were the fall guy." Derek tells me frankly.

I look at him. Damn him for trying to rationalize this. I'm not even sure why I am getting mad at him, but I am. It's like he is trying to chisel away that protective coating. He is trying to take my pain away from me. Maybe I like my pain. Sounds sick, but I am beginning to wonder. Maybe I am just a horrible twisted person who can't feel love.

"Just- Just fuck me, Derek." I say as I roll towards him. "Fuck me now!" I tell him as I rip off my shirt.